On this episode of “Once Upon a Time, “it’s more of Rumpelstiltskin’s backstory, going way way back, to little boy Rump and his also-Scottish-sounding father. It’s by far the most unsettling backstory yet.

In a tavern yard in Fairy Tale, a young boy begs men not to hurt his father, who is a 3-card monte cheat. His father later brings him to a cabin with women spinning, to look after him while he attempts to get a real job. Before he goes, he gives him the corn husk doll that made Rump cry a few episodes ago as a present. Soon they see the boy has a huge talent for spinning. The women advise him to take the magic bean and go somewhere his father’s bad reputation won’t follow him.

The landing party walk through the forest towards Pan’s lands, first finding Regina and Rump, who has Pandora’s Box. They all draw their weapons on him. Rump hands over Pandora’s Box to earn their trust, and tells Neal he has no idea who he’s up against. Pan destroyed his family, he says, which turns out to be the understatement of the saga. As they tramp along, Hook and Emma discuss Neal’s fate. Rump says he may know a cure.

At Pan’s camp, Regina waves her hand and causes a sleeping spell. “Help!” says someone: Wendy, in a cage. She’s startled to see an adult, and then Bae, grown up. She explains that she went back to Never Land to save him, because his mother and father were dead. “You told them that?” Rump says, and Bae says that it was better than saying his father abandoned him. Shut up, Bae.

Wendy lies about where Pan is, but Rump recognizes she’s lying. Bae promises he will save her brothers, but he needs her help. She then admits that Pan really wants the heart of the truest believer so he can be immortal. It’s a trade, she says: Henry will die. They make a plan to rescue Henry, and send Charming to Dead Man’s Peak to get water to make a cure. They believe in Rump after all Cut to Pan rowing Henry to Skull Rock.

And in the past, Rumpel coaxes his dad to go away somewhere and make a fresh start. Dad remembers the phrase “think lovely thoughts,” which he used to comfort himself when he was apprenticed to a blacksmith. So, they go to Never Land, holding hands. In Never Land, they magick a candy bar, but can’t fly. Rump’s father remembers needing Pixie Dust. Rumpel is too scared to climb up the tall trees that have the pixie dust flowers, so Dad tells him to wait and he’ll get enough for both. He climbs up and sprinkles some dust on himself, saying “I want to fly,” but just then the shadow comes and mocks him, telling him he doesn’t belong. Rump weeps, thinking Dad has met with an accident, but then his father climbs down to comfort him. His father tells him that Never Land is only for adults. Rump suggests they go somewhere else, but Dad says he knows he would just go back to his old ways. The shadow comes to take the little boy. It’s the only way the father can believe he’s a young man. And as Rump is pulled away a green spell comes over Rump’s father, who suddenly turns into the person we know as Pan.

In the present, Rump is obviously remembering this as everyone but Emma, Bae, Regina and Rump row to the cave. A protection prevents anyone a shadow can get in. Rump doesn’t have one, and tells them that the spell is about drawing him in, not keeping them out. They are still scared to trust him, but hand him the box as he prepares to enter. Left behind, Regina and Emma cause a lunar eclipse to take their shadows away. Inside the cave Pan leads him to a place that he says is the place where Never Land’s magic emanates. There’s a huge hour glass, on a pedestal of golden skulls, which Pan says shows how much time is left for magic in Never Land.

Rump confronts Pan, saying “Where’s Henry.” “You mean my great-grandson,” Pan sneers. Pan says they are really alike, because both abandoned their sons. But Rump says he regretted leaving his son the moment he let him go and spent the rest of his life trying to get him back. Pan says he never forgot Rump. “Why do you think I call myself Peter Pan?” he shouts. We’re going to find out. Just put the box down, he says. We can make a fresh start. “Oh I’m going to make a fresh start, “Pan says, “Just not with you,” He waves his hand over the box but nothing happens: because Pan switched them. He waves his hand over the real box, and Rump dissolves and falls inside it as red powder. Pan smirks. Worst. Dad. Ever.

In the past, Rump knocks on the cabin door of the two women and sobs. He tells them everything, and that he lost his doll on the island. When they offer to make him another one, and he can give it the same name, little Rump says no, “Peter Pan is gone forever.” So that’s how the doll got his name. New Peter Pan, in the past, discovers Skull Island. The Shadow tells him the island was created when Pan decided to stay, and the hourglass shows how much time he has before he stops being young and dies. The shadow says he’s broken the rules by wanting to stay on, because Never Land is a place for children to visit in their dreams.

In Never Land present, Pan tells him he needs Henry’s heart. Not that Henry has to believe, but actually give him the heart. Pan lies and tells him he will have to stay on the island and live in Never Land. Henry waves a hand over him and Henry’s heart is in his hand. The landing party run in and tell Henry not to do whatever Pan has told him to do. Henry’s surprised Bae is alive, but then says that he will save magic and all of them. “The only person Regina’s interested in saving is himself,” Regina says. Pan tells Henry, “Every hero gets tested,” and that adults lie. They just want him to go with them. The adults say they believe in him because they love him. Henry says he loves them too, but he has to save magic, and turns around and shoves his heart into Pan’s chest. A green wind shakes everything. Pan lifts up in the air, and Henry falls to the ground.

What will happen to Rump? Is Henry dead? Can Charming be saved? What do you think?

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